Television

I believe that some of the different reasons that Williams uses to explain the statement that television has altered our world make very strong arguments. The first reason that he gives is that television was so powerful in delivering news and entertainment that it altered all of the technologies that came before it, such as radio. Television was such a powerful method of receiving information that it basically eclipsed all of the preceding technologies, because it could basically put the viewer in the middle of whatever was being reported on the news or of their favorite game show (or at least as close to being there as was possible in the late 1930s and early 1940s). Williams goes on to say that television altered not only our institutions but our social relationships as well, and an excellent example of this is Family Guy. One episode has Peter knocking out the town’s satellite dish, making the entire city go without cable. Without television, Peter has no idea what to do with himself or how to interact with other people, so he straps a piece of cardboard to his chest and pretends like his life a big reality show that he is watching. While that example may seem a bit extreme, I’m sure that a lot of people would be completely lost if they had to go without television for an extended period of time.